


Dinner and a Show

by Asuka Kureru (Askerian)



Category: Bleach
Genre: Adjuchas Grimmjow, Bestiality jokes, Humor, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 09:42:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17557979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askerian/pseuds/Asuka%20Kureru
Summary: The normal-human-sized prey is surrounded by mid-to-high-level adjuchas at least three time his size. He's not paying attention to any of them. Bandaged sword still up like a shield, he's staring at Grimmjow."Holy shit, you're g -- you're akitty!"





	Dinner and a Show

It's a royal fucking pain to groom when you have armor instead of fur. So when Grimmjow finds the water hole, damn straight he camps on it. 

It's... not really water, not in Hueco Mundo; it's reishi particles so fine they're more like an afterimage of dust, just big enough to have weight and substance but not enough to stack; they flow together well enough, slip into the cracks between his armor and flow back out, washing crud and old blood out. The fine residue that's left, he absorbs eventually.

Anyway hollows don't drink but they still spent their previous lives being people who could damn well die of thirst, so he's not the only one who likes to pretend. It's good for a bath _and_ an ambush.

"Ow, that hurt a bit!"

The hollow Di Roy is trying to chomp on is... what the fuck is he. 

He's wearing clothes for one things. For a second, even bigger thing, they're fucking _shinigami robes_. His full mask is framed by two impressive goring horns, and stupidly thick black streaks run down into the hole piercing through his sternum, but apart from these he's the most humanoid hollow Grimmjow's ever seen. Shawlong is a bad parody compared to that; every single proportion he can see looks... human.

Anyway dinner today has a leg wedged thigh-deep in Di Roy's maw, planted in a way that coincidentally makes Di Roy choke. He can't close his jaws to take the leg off at all.

Grimmjow watches dinner accidentally _yeah fucking right_ 'lose his balance' and send Yylfordt plowing past him and into Nakeem. 

They can barely feel his reiatsu. At this level he should have been an adjuchas two weeks.

"No, seriously, I'll bruise, can you let go?"

An audible sigh makes it past the closed teeth of the mask. 

Grimmjow ghosts behind Nakeem's black Menos robes and under them (doesn't matter he's too strong for Nakeem to absorb, this will never not feel creepy-wrong, but it's also why nobody ever sees it coming) and leaps for the offered nape of that neck, behind the long hair and the wrapped-up lunk of... something.

His eyes go wide the second he plants a paw on the bandages because _that's a fucking soul-cutter blade_ but his maw is already snapping forward and he is committed to it.

A fraction of second later he's sent flying. He rolls on sand, lands with a splash in the water hole. When he resurfaces Di Roy is missing two teeth where the guy yanked his leg free and Grimmjow has a _very long butcher knife right in his face_ \--

He dodges to the side, kicks off the air in a flash, ricochets back at the target from the side _it had better not be able to move that ridiculous huge thing fast enough to **ohfuckhe'sdead**_ \--

He hits the flat of the blade instead of the edge (what?); kicks off with all four paws and gets shoved off all at once. Rolls in the air, lands in a crouch. 

The normal-human-sized prey is surrounded by mid-to-high-level adjuchas at least three time his size. He's not paying attention to any of them. Bandaged sword still up like a shield, he's staring at Grimmjow.

"Holy shit, you're g -- you're a _kitty!_ "

Grimmjow pauses. His nostrils flare once; he brings himself back to total stillness.

He still can't feel anything from the guy worth writing home about. He knows that's wrong. There's a trick, a _dozen_ tricks, blaring neon signs telling him to cut and run.

"Edrad, stand down," he orders instead, barely growling. "All of you retreat to the cliffs. Now."

"I'm not going to hurt them," the trick dinner says, shrugging his shoulders and scratching at the back of his neck with his free hand. 

"You're not," Grimmjow agrees, so low it's almost a purr (only a braindead idiot would think it's a purr), "but I sure as hell am going to hurt you."

He gathers his reiatsu and kicks into high gear.

Thirty minutes and a landslide later he has managed to draw blood three times -- learned dinner has no hierro, learned it doesn't matter because he does have _high-speed regeneration what the fuck_ , and learned he's _fucking playing with him_ because no matter how fast or tricky Grimmjow is, one: the guy is a fraction of second faster and two, he never uses the edge of his blade. 

Finally, fed-up with this whole bullshit, Grimmjow swipes his tail sideways into the thicker outer edge of a horn -- and it hits, flinging the guy's head to the side. Grimmjow didn't know if the outer edge would also be sharp and was ready to lose his tail-tip to find out and now he finds out his horns are one thing the guy doesn't have a pitch-perfect awareness of, relative to the position of his body in space.

Same with the long-ass orange hair; it streams by with the violence of the impact and Grimmjow whirls on landing like a tornado of death and snatches up a mouthful of it. Yanks.

He has two seconds to enjoy the wide-eyed surprise in gold-on-black eyes as Dinner lands hard on his back and Grimmjow's front claws come flashing out, lined with crystallized energy.

The next second a weight so vast he can't comprehend it slams into his back, flattens him dazed onto the sand. It's reiatsu, vasto lorde-level reiatsu, choking and inescapable like death. He makes a little surprised noise through his nose, maw still closed on long hair.

The guy chops it off with that huge blade, swipes it with unconcerned ease between his neck and Grimmjow's maw, and sits up.

"Sorry," he says as the ocean of power wanes, "that wasn't fair. Reflex. I didn't expect that!"

"Stop _consoling_ me with _fake-ass flattery_ ," Grimmjow hisses in between hacking up hair that's caught in his teeth, on the raspy spines of his tongue. His head feels heavy, stuffed full of cotton; he pushes himself up on all fours but he has to brace wide, tail swinging wildly to balance. "I'm trying to kill you and you're borderline patting my fucking head, are you serious?"

"Um. Not very." He ruffles at the hair at his nape again; not all of it is shortened, it's a mess of jagged, uneven locks. "Sorry. It was fun and you're gonna be good one day, just... It's a reiryoku levels thing, not a battle techniques thing."

"Hey, remind me, fluff-for-brains," Grimmjow asks casually, "what did I just tell you about consoling me?", and rams Dinner's mask straight-on with his own forehead.

Did he crack his own mask with this bullshit? If he did -- worth it. Head ringing, he shoots both front paws forward to grab onto the sides of his neck and pulls, back paws ready to shred themselves a way into his guts and right through to the spine. Shouting, Dinner pushes off to roll with him. Grimmjow gets punched in the nose, elbowed in the chest, and kneed in the balls somehow; he refuses to let go. They roll on the sand as he tries to chew a mouthful of mask off and almost chips a fang, then roll the other way and he has no fucking clue how but he gets his brain fucking rattled by a sideways swipe of those stupid horns. 

Next thing he knows he's in a headlock.

Well, he had a good run. 

His idiots haven't escaped. He can see them on the leftover bits of cliff. The way Di Roy wriggles he's about to lunge but he's so far and so slow Dinner will have a week to see him coming. Shawlong Grimmjow wants to believe will be smarter than to even try, but something yearning-pained whispers to him that maybe not.

(If he does Grimmjow will kill him himself for stupidity. Grimmjow ain't paying Shawlong to be a dunce. Di Roy and Yylfordt have the market cornered.)

The vasto lorde -- because ain't no way he's anything else -- forces him onto his flank where Grimmjow can't kick and buck, straddles his shoulder to pin him down. When Grimmjow lashes the armored flail of his tail it gets snatched in the air and then held so that his hindquarters come off the sand. He can't kick. He tries anyway, choking and half-swooned; moves the both of them maybe ten inches through the sand, only digs himself a cozy little dip to get buried into. It'll be a real shallow grave. Fuck.

"Calm _down_ , asshole."

Grimmjow snarls. It's hard without sufficient oxygen, but he manages. His vision is full of black splotches.

"Yeah, yeah. You done?"

He chokes, eyes fluttering closed. " _Never_." 

"Haa... Sounds right."

Grimmjow's head hits the sand, heavy. Oh, air. Huh. Been a while. 

Sure as shit hasn't been long enough to not notice the fingers digging into the sleek black ruff around his neck, the biggest exposed area between his armor plates.

Fucker is petting him.

Grimmjow is gonna piss on his corpse.

"When I evolve to vasto lorde I'm coming straight after you," he promises, not even bothering to shrug him off right now. "First thing I'll do, hunt you down and butcher your ass."

"Pfft. Sounds good." He keeps petting, Grimmjow's tail slipping free of his grasp. Grimmjow unrolls with all his length onto his flank, exhausted, and exasperated more than furious somehow. 

Probably because of the exhaustion. But there's been zero hostility from the very start in this guy and he's out of juice to restart it just yet. Just give him a minute, mostly to think of a new plan.

Now those clawless fingers are under the ridge of his spine, kneading through the undercoat and pressing down on both sides of it.

It's a neck massage, he suddenly knows, like humans do to relieve muscular tension.

"... You trying to fuck or something?"

Sudden stillness; then in a flash he's free. The eventual vasto lorde dinner flings himself off him and onto his ass, staring with choked horror behind the expressionless mask.

"Wh-- _what_?"

... Hah. Grimmjow pushes himself up into a sitting position, regards him with his ears canted dubiously. "Let me count the ways. Feeling me up and shit, promising safe passage to my friends, fucking strutting your feathers in my face with that fighting display -- you're trying to tell me that ain't it?"

He brings up a paw, licks it, starts smoothing the ruffled fur behind his ears, casual as you please. 

"You straddled me, buddy. Gonna tell me there was no humping action in it?" 

The vasto lorde chokes on his spit. " _Grimmjow you're a **cat!**_ "

Grimmjow gives a slow, heavy-lidded blink. "... Yeah?"

Horror in the heavy backwards-lean of his body. "... _**No**_."

The fucking liar doesn't stand up to get out of reach of Grimmjow's claws either. Still sitting in the sand beside him like they're allies or something, sword on his back and not even in hand.

His mask isn't even chipped. Tch.

He used Grimmjow's name. Unthinking, careless. Familiar. Could have heard it from Grimmjow's yelling subordinates...

Doesn't feel that way.

Grimmjow grooms his neck fur back into place too; thorough, methodical. Dinner doesn't make a move to leave.

"Now I'm vaguely disappointed," he muses, tail tip flicking just barely, though it wants to lash. "Haven't gotten laid in fucking eons, my dick's got spiderwebs I swear to God."

The squeaky sound Dinner makes has him hooding his eyes in satisfaction.

"Why don't you get laid _with your friends_ ," Dinner barks in that high-pitched prey-tone. "They're nice, they like you--"

"Aw," Grimmjow drawls, shuffling his paws closer together in what looks like a pre-cat loaf stage but is in fact a ready-to-pounce position, "but I _know_ you don't need _or_ want to kill me or you'd be chowing down already. Those useless fuckers, now..."

The vasto lorde sends him a primly disapproving look over his toothy maw, horns angled down like disappointed eyebrows. "You really should be nicer to them. You'll miss them if you don't take better care of them."

Grimmjow flips his ears back, curls up his lip. "Hey--" 

"Also," he adds more prosaically, "it'll be way harder to evolve to vasto lorde if you have to do it sleep-deprived because no one will watch your back. And I do not want to hear a single come-on from you until you evolve to vasto lorde, okay, you're forbidden. No."

Grimmjow stares for a few long seconds, leaning back onto his haunches to sphinx it up, all the better to ogle him long-term.

"How... _exactly_ do you plan to stop me doing that. Like. Tell me it ain't beatings."

"Noooot that dumb. I'm pretty sure you enjoy beatings in a near sexual way, so that'd be pretty counterproductive," Dinner shoots back, head tilted, eyes gleaming in amusement.

Grimmjow catches himself feeling amused, too, behind the frustration and the rapidly deflating rage. He slinks up to his feet, making a show of stretching his back; approaches, swinging his weight just a little. He knows it's a rare adjuchas that's smaller than him, but it's an even rarer one that moves better. 

"You got me," he purrs quietly, voice dropping half an octave. "God but I've been having _thoughts_. You ever thought to use that sword as a _paddle_ \--"

"I _warned_ you," Dinner says, suddenly on his feet and behind Grimmjow, and he grips his tail and sends him flying toward the water hole.

Grimmjow doesn't even bother catching himself in mid-air; he cannonballs through the surface already cackling. He resurfaces still laughing, jowls up to bare his teeth. 

"Oh hell, you _like_ water, what the hell kind of cat are you," Dinner morosely complains. 

Grimmjow swims in a smug little circle. Then he dives. 

He bursts out of the water with all the power he can pack in a sonido, maw wide open. When he tackles Dinner, the guy has this resigned set to his shoulders, but he still fights Grimmjow for another fifteen minutes.

\--

"So what should we call you?" Shawlong asks later on as they all hang around the water hole, the rest of Grimmjow's posse keeping a cautious distance as the guy soaks his feet in and his weirdass shinigami-adjacent robes drip into the sand. 

Grimmjow himself is floating, eyes at the surface and maw underwater like a crocodile, and enjoying the relief of weightlessness on his strained muscles. His armor is heavy but the reishi particles in the pseudo-water are thick enough that he doesn't need to move much to maintain himself.

"Oh, uh."

"In case we run into you again," Shawlong continues patiently. "Or into your allies, or enemies. Surely knowing you take exception to them should be a solid warning as to their strength and disposition."

The guy blinks honey-golden eyes. "Um. Pretty out of enemies as of yesterday. You guys should be safe."

Edrad and Shawlong trade looks. Yylfordt as always can't shut his fucking mouth and shoves forward. "As if we're scared, brother!"

Di Roy can shut his mouth even less somehow but at least he manages to be a little less offensive with his tone. "How strong were they? How many? D'you eat all the carcasses?"

Grimmjow rolls his eyes; Dinner chokes on a laugh. "I... didn't think to leave corpses. My bad." 

The direction he vaguely gestures in makes Grimmjow's ears flatten back, though. 

"Run into any of those fucking shinigami trying to build their outpost over there?"

... Bingo. Guilty freeze, throat clearing, another neck rub. Even his massive, razor-edged horns seem to droop in embarrassment, it's ridiculous.

"Nnnno? Um. Okay, yes. That's not gonna happen now." 

A long, strange pause, and then an odd, too-long look, too fey to be offensive; but the mask swallows any more subtle shifts of expression. 

"Guess you guys will have to evolve the normal way."

"Who'd eat _shinigami_ to progress anyway," Di Roy says, stupidly, and Yylfordt, Edrad and even Shawlong chorus, " _ **I would**_ ," Nakeem watching on expressionless in a way that conveys his amusement somehow. Because seriously, who _wouldn't_. 

"I've eaten _five_ ," Yylfordt brags, and Grimmjow rolls his eyes and drags himself out of the water to administer a light beating, because like hell he has. Five academy babies, maybe, and even that he doubts.

The vasto lorde watches with his eyes crinkled like he's smiling behind his murder-face, arms loose around his knees. 

"You can call me Zangetsu, I guess," he tells Grimmjow once Grimmjow comes back across the beach to sprawl in the shallows, his idiots in a beaten-up pile behind him. "That's... Kind of right." Grimmjow snorts. 

"I'll stick with calling you Dinner."

"-- _Hey_."

"Or I could call you Snack," Grimmjow shoots back, making sure to purr seductively through it. 

He was ready to dodge and he still gets popped over the head with the spine of the sword. 

Still worth it.

\--

He doesn't see Zangetsu again. Months and years; he progresses. Wants to test himself against that impassable wall. Doesn't find him. 

He loses Yylfordt and then he loses Nakeem. He progresses. Wants to beat himself against that wall. Punish himself. Force himself better, so it doesn't... Not again.

No Zangetsu. No Zangetsu in the white ruins and no Zangetsu in the opposite direction from that. With each year it's more like he dreamed it, a vasto lorde that knew his name and treated him like trusted fraccion for no reason at all. That beat him into the dunes and felt bad for hurting his feelings, or his pride, same difference, that he _can't beat up back_. He seethes. That asshole. How dare he offer a challenge and then never allow Grimmjow to take him up on it.

Grimmjow eats Yylfordt's brother (now he's got both of their soul collections; now he's got Yylfordt back) and then he's exploding and alive, then he's tall on two paws and he has hands again. Of his mask he has only the sides of the jaws and the skull like a crown. He rediscovers the expressions you can make with eyebrows and a human mouth.

His hair is baby-blue. What the shit. But it looks cool, so whatever. He remembers biting a mouthful of flowing orange and ties it back in a high ponytail to get it out of the way.

Di Roy fawns, complains. Grimmjow reminds him he's the idiot who offered Grimmjow a piece of his own body via _being fucking stupid_ and got his gigantic wormy ass stuck as an adjuchas until the end of the universe.

"Now I'm sad about it though. You look _really_ nice."

Grimmjow rolls his eyes. "I wouldn't fuck you with a panther dick, I'm sure as hell not putting in a human one."

Edrad snorts. "No offense, boss -- at least it'd be big enough he might feel it now."

"Oh, hey, boss, do you still have spines on it?"

Grimmjow hits them both. (Carefully.) Shawlong says nothing, but his shoulders shake suspiciously.

Later as they're alone he tells Grimmjow about rumors he heard from a victim of an ally of a neighbor's prey or some shit. A vasto lorde with orange hair in the human world, staking a whole town as hunting grounds and not even the shinigami have managed to chase it off. 

It might be someone else, Shawlong cautions; apparently it's only got one horn.

"Yeah, I'm going," Grimmjow says without even needing to think. "If it's him, I got a beating with half a century of interest and his name on it. And if it's not I gotta test out this chassis anyway, don't I."

He pauses, hand already up to tear a garganta open. 

"Who fucking knows, maybe if Di Roy eats a vasto lorde he can choke on it and take himself out of our misery."

Shawlong chuckles. "That might help. Good hunting," he adds, "my king."

Grimmjow has already stepped through, so he just hisses over his shoulder and stalks off. Damn straight he's their king, no need to rub it in like he's _teasing_.

Not king of Hueco Mundo as a whole yet. But hey. Nothing but time. 

And if it's not Zangetsu over there he may eat a chunk out of it on principle. Maybe that'll boost him a bit closer to the insane levels of Harribel and Barragan.

\--

Karakura, he discovers from the sky, is some kind of hollow paradise. So rich in ambient reishi it must be lousy with ghosts and sensitive plus souls still in their original meat packaging.

He can't feel a single hollow in it. Not a one. Frowning, he closes his eyes to sense farther. No... Nope. Not this either. Not... 

This is weird. Not -- quite hollow, but very strong, and _weird_. Several... little... 

He hunts. From the air and then down in the streets, walking invisible amongst humans by the thousands. It's oddly amusing, but they're so weak they're barely worth the notice as anything but décor. Milling around, laughing, with weird new clothes on and weird new accessories at hand, doing the same old haggling and flirting. This town must not have known war in a while. No one really moves like they're prey.

Down on a river bank there's a very good notice-me-not barrier. He considers it for a minute before he walks right through, plowing it down like a tank through a spiderweb.

"-- Mom, this guy has a _cat tail,_ is he a pervert?"

Down on the river bank there are two ladies and two kids -- he can tell the pairs because the hair matches, sleek black on one side, wild orange on the other one, though the woman's is more muted. 

He can tell the reiatsu signatures. It's. It's not.

It is? 

He's got two quincy bows in his face -- well, four, but the kids' are lousy -- and he doesn't even give a shit, because. That orange kid. 

What the fuck.

"... Did Zangetsu seriously fuck a Quincy?" he asks the orange-haired woman, baffled and knowing he's scowling. He's not even sure why he cares, he just. He didn't expect that, what the fuck? What the fuck.

The black-haired woman still looks ready to murder his ass but the orange one just blinks at him with her huge eyes and then bursts out laughing, and then she _lowers her weapon_.

Doesn't dismiss it either, but.

He could be on her in the time it took her to notice he wasn't up on the road anymore. She's not that strong. Is she? She reminds him of that asshole and his friendly carelessness, and yeah, he had a reason not to worry, didn't he.

"You're not supposed to use those words around my mom, you jerk," the smallest orange calls out. "Or Mrs. Kanae! You can around Uryuu, I guess, he's a twerp."

The twerpy-looking black-haired kid shoots the orange one an offended glare and sparkles his little toy bow menacingly. The orange woman giggles in her hand. Grimmjow hasn't felt less like a threat in _half a century_. Coincidence? Yeah, he thinks the fuck not.

He moves slowly to the grassy top of the slope, though he doesn't try to cross the edge and go down to their level; the black-haired woman _would_ shoot him, and then he'd murder her, and if Zangetsu has been fucking her too he's not gonna want to fight with Grimmjow, he's just gonna want to eat him. 

The small one's reiatsu feels so similar. But without any of the jagged, hungry edges of hollow. How weird. 

"Where is he?" he asks Orange Woman, who smiles in a way that crinkles her droopy eyes.

"He'll be along soon. Do you want to wait?" 

"Well if I want a fight I had better, don't I," Grimmjow grouses, and crosses his arms. (It's still weird to do this kind of body language. He does things by instinct or old habit and then he's like, wait, that wasn't how I used to do it. But thinking too much about it is the best way to foul it up; that's why he needs a good hard fight. Ain't no time to think too much about what the set of your fingers says when you're trying not to catch a sword with your throat.)

"A fight... A cat person... Oh, you're Grimmjow!" 

Orange Woman smiles harder. Grimmjow stares blankly, tail puffed up a little at the end.

"How the _entire_ fuck."

"Zan'ichi-nii has a _lot_ of weird friends," Light Orange Breakfast says with an eyeroll, and starts clambering up the slope.

Grimmjow is very fucking glad when Orange Woman stops her offspring with a vaguely nervous giggle. The world isn't crazy in its _entirety_ yet.

"What did Zan'ichi-nii say about crowding his hollow friends though?"

"Um. Don't."

"Right! They're not used to children, so it's not fair to them. Come on, Ichigo, let's go back to practice. Uryuu-chan, what do you think, do you want to show Ichigo again?"

This is even more surreal, he is sure, than dying and being turned into an evil ghost. 

Zangetsu. Zan'ichi. Ichigo. The child's short, burning-leaf spikes, his tone of voice. Nii is for brothers, not parents. There's something that pulls at Grimmjow's attention, like a word on the tip of his tongue but it won't click. 

"You been waiting long?" says the voice Grimmjow was actually waiting for.

Grimmjow turns around and for a second he thinks, _the asshole has evolved again_.

There's no mask. There's a double streak of black going down his face, just like the mask but on normal, peach-colored human skin. A single horn is left, but the face is entirely free.

Grimmjow throws a lightning-fast look over his shoulder at Light Orange Breakfast and it's the same fucking face. 

"Just got here," he replies blandly, mind whirring. 

"Um. The hair is new," the imbecile blurts out.

Wordlessly, Grimmjow sweeps both hands down his entire body. 

"... The rest of it too, yeah, I guess. Nice, uh. Everything."

Down by the river someone erupts into giggles -- quickly smothered, but badly so. Zangetsu's peach face slowly turns a brilliant scarlet.

"Oh my god, Mom, I didn't mean it like that!"

There's a couple of assholes behind him. Humans, Grimmjow thinks. Powerful, though. Incredibly powerful for living pluses. Another snooty black-haired twerp and a huge tank with armored arms and some girl laughing behind her hands. Eh. Grimmjow considers them for a second. Twerpy the Elder looks...

Nah. He doesn't care.

"I'm still up for a fuck," Grimmjow says, dismissing the entire mystery, and smirks a wide, mean smirk at the oddly predictable blush blooming anew on that bare face. "But only if there are spankings first."

Zangetsu-Zan'ichi-whoever punts him straight into the river. Laughing like a loon, Grimmjow drags him underwater with him. 

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  [tumblr](https://asukaskerian.tumblr.com/post/184463786945/heavily-referenced-on-kubo-art-illustration-for)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Pizza Party](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18524545) by [Asuka Kureru (Askerian)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askerian/pseuds/Asuka%20Kureru)




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